THREE - three, yet it could easily have been double that for both Albion and Bristol Rovers.

THREE - three, yet it could easily have been double that for both Albion and Bristol Rovers.

A topsy-turvy game saw Albion dice with defeat, veer towards victory before finally settling for a stalemate.

Frankly it doesn't matter what the result was - the end product was that there were no new injuries, with some things in need of fine tuning and other aspects still in need of major work.

Rickie Lambert was the star of the show for Bristol Rovers, scoring a hat-trick to balance out the game but the night also marked a fine performance and goal from Albion new-boy Craig Beattie.

Lambert's opening strike came on just six minutes when he was given the freedom of the Bristol to pounce unmarked onto Richard Walker's flick-on from Aaron Lescott's centre.

The second came as a result of another defensive switch-off when he rose above Tininho just after the break to nod home Chris Carruther's left-wing cross.

Cue the Albion comeback. Nathan Ellington pulled one back in the 56th minute when he ghosted across the box and drove in a low shot past the rooted Steve Phillips.

On the hour-mark Beattie pounced to score his first in Albion colours. Kevin Phillips released the ex-Celtic man who collected the ball with his back to goal, before turning his marker and driving him a low-angled shot. It was a striker's masterpiece.

Darren Carter added the third six minutes later when he hammered home a free-kick from 20 yards.

Yet Albion continued to twitch nervously at the back, with Lambert claiming the match-ball in the 73rd minute before going close just moments later.

Both sides had numerous chances to increase the goal tally, both keepers and goalposts keeping the scores down.

Albion looked slick going forward, perhaps over-elaborating a little too much before the break as their 4-3-3 drifted more towards a diamond formation. But at the back there was less cohesion. Tininho and Jared Hodgkiss stumbled along, while Curtis Davies was woeful with only Leon Barnett and Dean Kiely emerging with any great credit from the back five.

Beattie was superb and is getting better with every game and the midfield trio of Jon Greening, Zoltan Gera and Filipe Teixeira added vision and movement to the attacks albeit lacking steel and resilience.